This has already been passed around a number of blogs, but thought it was worth noting on here — this one goes out to Michelle.
Robo-Rainbow is a work by Akay, as part of his instruments of mass destruction (complicated technical solution to aide in simple acts of vandalism).
In the event you didn’t catch the Superbowl. A commercial about a new car, abandoned buildings, a choir mysteriously singing in the Fox Theatre, oh, and Eminem. Epic.
via Julie Sando (IRL)
A few weeks ago I met with Andréanne Baribeau of Windsor’s local French CBC radio AM 540 on the Y a pas deux matins pareils show to speak about Broken City Lab’s ongoing projects Make This Better and How To Forget The Border Completely.
The Episode aired the morning of Monday, January 31st. Check it out if you understand French or would like to try to decipher what I’m saying:
CBEF interview (link is fixed)
With our ongoing How to Forget the Border Completely research project in mind, I’m just about to sit down and watch Two, Countries, One Street on the National Film Board of Canada website.
Filmed in 1955, this short documentary visits the 3 Québec border towns of Rock Island, Stanstead and Beebe, and the Vermont town of Derby Line to see how residents and officials cope with a civic life that is cut down the middle by an international boundary.
It will be good to think about how residents and officials living in Windsor and Detroit might begin to cope with the reality of the border today and in the future, in relation to a similar situation in Québec circa 1955. Mind you, the wide river is what visually distances Windsor and Detroit from each other, and it seems that the communities of Rock Island, Stanstead, Beebe and Derby Line are not separated by a body of water.
It’s only 22 minutes, so check it out!
The Words Don’t Fit the Picture is Ron Terada’s new text-based installation made in response to and sitting in front of the Vancouver Central Library. This illuminated sign stands on metal beams in front of the library’s front doors and can be seen from very far away. It is also a great example of how to securely mount large text in a public space, something we have been researching lately as a group.
A Friday with everyone around the table usually translates into a lot of excellent new ideas, and yesterday was no exception!
We spent the evening reviewing the progress we’ve made on some initial research and may have sparked an entirely new direction for the project. All of the excitement is after the jump!
Continue reading “BCL Report: February 4, 2011 (Repairs and Reviews)”
I’m excited to note that in addition to the current exhibition, Make It Work, on at SoVA Projects Gallery (nee LeBel Gallery) featuring work by Michelle, a new poster installation that I did, and a ton of other incredible local Windsor-Detroit artists, there’s a panel discussion featuring guests from across the country.
If you’re remotely interested in some of the things we talk about here on the blog, you should really make a point of attending the reception and panel discussion on Thursday, February 3rd, starting at 5:30pm.
From the description of the panel discussion:
While the idea of creative economies has become commonplace in large cultural centres, there has been less consideration of the possibilities and challenges of working in economically distressed cities that are at a distance from cultural capitals and the art market.
Research into the trend of shrinking cities in recent years has drawn attention to the question of how to consider cities that are losing population and basic infrastructure. Possible answers to the problems raised by shrinking cities have not been coming from economists or politicians, but from artists, designers and architects.
Discussions will arise around questions such as:
What might locality and local production mean when two cities are located on an international border? What role do artists and grassroots organizations have in redefining local realities? How do ethnic, racial, religious, and cultural realities play out in negotiations of place and identity, and how can these negotiations posit new sorts of regional or global identities? And what might local mean in the Detroit-Windsor region, for example, where some creative practices are focused on audiences at the scale of the neighbourhood or even the block, while others seek audiences far beyond?
The Panel Discussion runs 6:30-9 pm SoVA Projects Gallery University of Windsor Huron Church Road @ College Avenue and features Anthony Kiendl (Director, Plug In Institute for Contemporary Art, Winnipeg, MB) Shauna McCabe (Director, Canadian Textile Museum, Toronto ON; Canada Research Chair, Mt. Alison University, NB) Andrew Herscher (Assistant Professor, Taubman School of Architecture and Urban Planning, University of Michigan, and co-founder of The Detroit Unreal Estate Agency) J. Monte Martinez (Creative Director, 555 Arts, Detroit, MI) Justin Langlois (Lecturer, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, University of Windsor; Director Broken City Lab, Windsor, ON)